


The Rest Without Signs

by dire_quail



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Can be read as platonic if that’s what you’re into, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Grace Lives, Non-binary Grace, Positive memories in hell?, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Sleep as a metaphor for trust, What’s the opposite of a trauma trigger reaction, ambiguously romantic, they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dire_quail/pseuds/dire_quail
Summary: Trans Bingo Round One fills for Terminator: Dark Fate.First one: NB Grace, long drives, and Dani learns some things about their future-past.
Relationships: Grace Harper & Dani Ramos, Grace Harper/Dani Ramos
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	The Rest Without Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Five Feet of Road” by White Dress.
> 
> For the Trans Bingo prompt "Exhaustion".

Driving with the windows down didn’t annoy Sarah as much as Dani thought it would. Grace insisted, on account of their Augments, and the look on their face said they expected more resistance from Sarah. But either the two of them are getting over their need to contradict each other, or Sarah thinks this will prevent further disagreements by keeping them from talking in the first place. Dani thinks it’s definitely the latter, but hopes there’s elements of both. 

You’d think, with the amount of times they’ve saved each others’ lives recently, they’d have settled into something like an understanding. But no. Grace and Sarah have had opposing or mutually exclusive ideas on just about everything since the two of them started recovering from the fight at the dam—Dani was the most intact of all of them—on everything from where to go next to what to eat to how best to train Dani. 

Dani was able to nip that last one in the bud, at least. If it involves her, she makes the decision. It sparked a rare moment of consensus between the two older fighters: Neither of them liked that. Grace didn’t realize it, of course; they thought Sarah’s silence was agreement with Dani. But Dani can read Sarah much better now, and she caught the almost-imperceptible tightening of Sarah’s expression, her face becoming as reflective and emotionless as her aviators. 

_You’re being a moron_ , the aviators said. 

In all honesty, she just needed them both to shut up so they could get on the road. And for all of Sarah’s terseness, Grace tends to bring out the argumentative in her. 

One thing they’ve collectively managed to do—mostly because she was already learning, so their differences in methodology are largely moot—is get Dani driving. 

And Dani expected Grace to object to her driving this stretch, too, or at least to insist on riding shotgun. But instead, they crawled into the backseat and laid down. Dani doesn’t get why—it’s been weeks and she’s still almost never seen Grace sleep—even when she looks back in the rearview and Grace is still laying down. 

“Are they alright?” Dani asks Sarah. Sarah cranes around. 

“I think they’re asleep.” Sarah resettles herself. “Hope they don’t wake up and punch a hole in the van.” 

Dani, remembering when Grace first woke up after passing out at the dam, is suddenly anxious. 

“Can you, I don’t know, poke them or something?” Dani realizes as she says it how stupid that idea is, if they’re worried about Grace punching a hole in their moving car. 

Sarah snorts. “ _You_ poke them.” 

Dani doesn’t press further. 

She does, however, pull off maybe half an hour later at a wide spot in the road that boasts a gas station and convenience store, not far from a state park. Sarah can silently judge her for it all she wants. 

Almost like magic, when the engine shuts off, Grace starts to stir. They grumble an affirmative when Dani announces they’re getting food and drag themselves out of the van, rubbing their eyes. Sarah stays with the van. 

Dani asks them inside the convenience store: “Were you asleep back there?” 

Grace nods. “Yeah.” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep that long.” 

They give their characteristic distracted half-smile, eyes flicking away, scanning. Like they’re worried that now that they’re smiling, someone will jump them. “I used to sleep in ‘flyers all the time. Only time I ever got sleep.” 

“Wouldn’t you be worried about the machines?” 

They shrug. This time, they hold Dani’s gaze, expression going in the span of heartbeats from surprised to searching to sad to almost apologetic, and they finally give her an almost sheepish smile. “Not everything’s a combat mission. Either we get an alert and I wake up, or we don’t and it’s no longer my problem.” 

_That’s_ not comforting. 

They fall silent for a while after that, falling into Dani’s normal rhythm of picking up supplies with Grace at her side. After several minutes of silence—

“When you first picked me up, you drove a lot—mostly ground vehicles.” They say almost casually, out of nowhere. Dani has to recalibrate mentally and remember what they were just talking about. “I’d fall asleep in the backseat. Couldn’t keep my eyes open.” They finally meet Dani’s eyes and their ghost of a smile, warm but faint, flickers over their face. But it’s their eyes, Dani realizes. They have a hard time meeting her eyes. Because Dani can see the emotion in them, and it’s as pure and fathomless as it was when they got down on their knees in a cargo plane and told her _You are the future_. 

Dani wraps her arm that’s not carrying supplies around Grace’s waist, not quite able to bear everything she’s just heard in the last ten minutes without touching them, squeezing them into a side hug. They loop an arm around her shoulders, tucking her under their chin, some of that tension they carry everywhere with them draining out of their body. 

Dani can’t picture them in her mind: A teenager or a younger adolescent or even a kid—Grace wasn’t specific—alone after the end of the world, falling asleep in the back of some stranger’s car. A rush of conflicting feelings fills her stomach—affection, pride, heartache for the child Grace was, and the always-mounting pressure to live up to someone who doesn’t exist yet. Who, for all she knows, doesn’t exist anymore at all. Will never exist. 

Still. When they’re back on the road and she checks the rearview, Grace is laid out across the bench, asleep again.


End file.
